Urenco Capenhurst Produces LEU Plus, Advances UK Fuel Supply Chain

Urenco’s Capenhurst enrichment site near Liverpool produced LEU+, or low-enriched uranium above 5% U-235, in a five-day trial that ended on Friday, May 1, and reached samples at 7% enrichment. The move matters because it fills the awkward gap between today’s standard commercial reactor fuel and the higher-assay fuel many advanced designs are built around. In fuel-cycle terms, that is not a small tweak. It is the difference between a niche enrichment demonstration and a material step toward a broader supply chain.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation had approved the trial, and Urenco said commercial availability from the UK was expected in the near future. The company also said LEU+ could be transported to fabricators from early 2027, which would push the product from centrifuge output into the part of the business that actually feeds reactor contracts. Urenco said the fuel is meant to help light-water reactors run longer between refuelings, cut operating and maintenance costs, and give advanced reactor developers a nearer-term option before moving up to higher-assay fuel.

That last point is where the milestone gets bigger than the headline suggests. UK government guidance says advanced modular reactors may require uranium enriched to as much as 19.75% HALEU, and it says Russia is currently the only country able to supply commercially viable HALEU. LEU+ sits below that level, but Urenco has said it can serve as feedstock for future HALEU production, which makes Capenhurst part of the bridge between today’s reactor fleet and the next wave of designs. Urenco USA had already won Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorization on Sept. 30, 2025, to enrich uranium up to 10% U-235, and it said first deliveries to a fuel fabricator were planned for 2026.

Capenhurst is the right place to watch because the site is already a major piece of Urenco’s industrial base. It operates three enrichment plants, and the largest, E23, provides more than 80% of its enrichment capacity. That scale is why a move into LEU+ carries more than symbolic weight. It also lines up with the UK government’s £196 million commitment in May 2024 for a Capenhurst advanced-fuels facility, which it said should produce fuel by 2031 and support around 400 highly skilled jobs. Costain said in May 2025 that front-end engineering design for the new facility was expected to finish in 2027.

Urenco, which is majority owned by the governments of the Netherlands and the UK, is building a Western fuel option at exactly the point the market needs one. The Capenhurst trial does not solve the HALEU shortage, but it does strengthen the path toward a less fragile enrichment chain for light-water reactors now and advanced reactors later.